The transaxillary concept for minimally invasive isolated aortic valve replacement: results of 1000 consecutive patients.

Objectives: The transaxillary concept for minimally invasive cardiac surgery-aortic valve replacement is a new and versatile approach with nearly no visible scars. Due to its novelty, available data in literature are scarce. This study reports clinical outcomes of 1000 consecutive patients.

Methods: Between 2019 and 2023, 4394 patients underwent elective isolated aortic valve procedures, with 2958 (67.5%) transcatheter aortic valve implantation's and 1436 patients surgical aortic valve replacement's (32.5%). Within this period, 1st consecutive 1000 transaxillary isolated minimally invasive cardiac surgery-aortic valve replacement were enrolled. Endocarditis, redo's or combined procedures were excluded. Mean age was 67.9 ± 8.3 years, STS-PROM 1.39 ± 2.89% and EuroScore II 1.65 ± 1.12%.

Results: Use of the transaxillary access increased from 18.7% (2019) to 97.8% (2023). Mean procedure time was 127 ± 31 min, and average cross-clamp time was 43 ± 14 min. Used prostheses were rapid deployment (81.1%), sutured biologic (14.5%) or sutured mechanical valves (4.1%). Conversion rate was 1.9%. No patient died intraoperatively. Thirty-day major adverse cardiac and cerebrovascular event was 1.9% including 0.9% mortality, 0.8% perioperative stroke and 0.6% myocardial infarction. Multivariate factors for major adverse cardiac and cerebrovascular event are intraoperative conversion [OR 1.08 (1.00-1.16); P = 0.04], intraoperative transfusions [OR 1.21 (1.07-1.38); P < 0.01] and respiratory failure [OR 1.39 (1.30-1.49); P < 0.01]. Corresponding factors for mortality are diabetes on insulin [OR 1.02 (1.00-1.04); P = 0.03], pure aortic regurgitation for primary indication [OR 1.03 (1.01-1.05); P < 0.01], intraoperative conversion [OR 1.11 (1.07-1.16); P < 0.01], renal failure [OR 1.08 (1.05-1.10); P < 0.01] and respiratory failure [OR 1.22 (1.17-1.26); P < 0.01].

Conclusions: Transaxillary minimally invasive cardiac surgery-aortic valve replacement is a safe, effective and cosmetically convincing method for surgical aortic valve replacement, having the potential for >95.0% minimally invasive cardiac surgery rate in selected patients.